Saturday, February 7, 2009

Monday, February 2, 2009

I've twisted Alton Brown's recipe for a richer ice cream from the Food Network's web site and come up with the following:

2 cups heavy cream, 1 cup milk

6 egg yolks

6+ ounces of vanilla sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

Bring the milk and cream to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Then, cut the heat. While the cream is warming, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until it loses some of that yellow color.

Whisk a little of the warm cream mixture into the egg mixture thoroughly. Repeat the process until half of the cream has been added. Whisk in the remainder and then return to the sauce pan. (this is known in the trade as "tempering"...)

Put medium heat to the mixture and cook, constantly stirring, until it reaches 170 degrees Fahrenheit. (It will thicken and cover the back of a spoon such that you can swipe your finger across it and it will leave a track)

Pour into a your mixing bowl and let stand uncovered for 30 minutes. Stir in the vanilla extract and refrigerate uncovering until it is cool enough not form condensation on the lid. Then cover and chill until it reaches 40 degrees.

Then into the ice cream maker, etc, etc, yum yum blah blah blah.

If you do this the night before, and make the ice cream the morning of, it will set up nicely by dinner.